Trump hosts UK’s Keir Starmer for Ukraine talks amid disagreement over security guarantees
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump is hosting United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the White House on Thursday.
The two leaders will hold a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office shortly after noon ET before a press conference in the East Room slated for 2 p.m. ET.
Senior administration officials told reporters that much of the conversations between Trump and Starmer will focus on a peaceful resolution for the Russia-Ukraine war.
The meeting comes after Europe was left out of talks between the U.S. and Russia on how to end Russian President Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, which recently stretched into its fourth year.
Trump has since said Europe will have to bear primary responsibility for any security guarantees for Ukraine, as nations such as France and the United Kingdom urge the U.S. to support peacekeeping efforts post-conflict.
“Well, I’m not going to make security guarantees beyond very much,” Trump said at his first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday. “We’re going to have Europe do that because it’s in, you know, we’re talking about Europe is the next-door neighbor, but we’re going to make sure everything goes well.”
Trump also implied the mineral resource deal between the U.S. and Ukraine would be “automatic security,” because the U.S. will be investing in the nation and that would serve as a barrier to Russia.
Starmer has said he will ensure the United Kingdom is a “leading country” in European nations stepping up to support Ukraine, but said there needs to be a U.S. “backstop” to deter Putin.
“I don’t believe it will be a guarantee if there isn’t the U.S. backstop behind those security guarantees,” Starmer said after European leaders held an emergency meeting in Paris on Ukraine last week as Trump officials gathered with Russian counterparts in Saudi Arabia.
Administration officials said the U.S. has been in constant contact with European partners and providing updates on negotiations regarding an agreement to end the war.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to travel to Washington, D.C., on Friday.
Ukraine is working to win a U.S. security agreement as part of the proposed minerals deal, Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to travel to Washington, D.C., on Friday.
Ukraine is working to win a U.S. security agreement as part of the proposed minerals deal, Zelenskyy told reporters in Kyiv on Wednesday.
“I would say that there’s a balance between the size of the force needed and the strength of the diplomacy that backstops that, that secures it,” an official said.
“If that conflict level, as we want, is dialed down to a functional ceasefire, they would have fewer concerns … So the type of force depends very much on the political self settlement that is made to end the war,” the official continued. “And I think that trade off is what the leaders today, part of what the leaders today are going to be discussing.”
Soldiers with the 82nd Airborne division walk across the tarmac at Green Ramp to deploy to Poland, Feb. 14, 2022, at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, N.C./ Photo Credit: Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Transgender service members represented by LGBTQ advocacy groups on Tuesday filed suit against the White House executive order that bans transgender people from serving in the military.
The order signed late Monday rescinded Biden administration policies that permitted transgender service members to serve openly according to their gender identity. The order said the “assertion” that one might identify as transgender would be a “falsehood … not consistent with the humility and selflessness required of a service member.”
Space Force Col. Bree Fram, a transgender woman who came out and transitioned while serving, told ABC News that banning transgender individuals from serving would bring a “collective harm to our national securit
Transgender troops “are meeting or exceeding the high standards the military has set for performance, and they’re doing so here at home, around the world, and in every service, every specialty that the military has to offer,” Fram said, who was speaking in her personal capacity and not on behalf of the Pentagon.
According to the suit filed Tuesday by plaintiffs represented by GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders Law and the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the order directs Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “to reverse the current accession and retention standards for military service and to adopt instead a policy that transgender status is incompatible with ‘high standards'” that the executive order lays out.
Sasha Buchert, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal who represented plaintiffs who sued and temporarily blocked a similar order in 2017 in the first Trump administration, called the new order “cruel” and said it “compromises the safety of our country.”
She told ABC News the order “will force transgender service members to look over their shoulder” and “stamp them with [a] badge of inferiority.”
Buchert said her firm and the Human Rights Campaign also intend to file suit.
“We have been here before…as we promised then, so do we now: we will sue,” Buchert said.
Buchert said transgender troops will now “worry about…whether they’re going to have to end their illustrious military careers by being drummed out of the military.”
“Trans military folks have been serving now for 10 years, openly and proudly and deploying to austere environments and meeting every service-based standard that their peers can meet,” said Buchert, who is a veteran.
The executive order, paired with another that demands the dissolution of diversity, equity, and inclusion “bureaucracy” in the Defense Department, came on Hegseth’s first day of work at the Pentagon.
The Pentagon said in a statement to ABC News that it “will fully execute and implement all directives outlined” in all executive orders from the president.
The executive order does not make reference to transgender individuals. It directs the Pentagon to update guidelines around medical standards for individuals diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a precursor to transition care that affirms one’s gender.
According to a Defense official, 4,240 military personnel who are currently serving are diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Over a 10-year period since 2014, only a slightly higher total number of service members were diagnosed with gender dysphoria — 5,773.
Over that period, roughly 3,200 received gender-affirming hormone therapy, the official said, and about 1,000 received gender-affirming surgery.
The cost for both — as well as psychotherapy and other treatments over the last decade — was $52 million, or over $5 million per year.
Trump as a candidate said he would take aim at “transgender insanity” as president. The order says the military must root out “ideologies harmful to unit cohesion.”
The logic around cohesion is familiar, Buchert said.
“We’ve seen this as a country on many occasions. We’re still correcting improper discharges for people that were, you know, drummed out of the military based on discriminatory motives in the past,” she said.
Cassie Byard, a Navy veteran who served with a service member who was transgender, said she “never saw any adverse effect on readiness or cohesion.”
Fram believes openness about her identity has made her unit more cohesive.
“My being authentic is actually reflected back to me and builds the strong bonds of teamwork that we need at the military to succeed, because we need everyone to be able to bring their best self to work,” she said.
While the order brings a “period of uncertainty” as the Pentagon weighs updates to medical guidelines over a two-month window to implement it, Fram said “my job right now, and the job of every transgender service member, is simply to do our duty. It’s to lace up our boots and get to work and accomplish the mission that we’ve been given.”
“We swore an oath to uphold the duties that we’ve been given, [to] support the Constitution,” she added. “And we’re going to continue to do so, unless told otherwise.”
-ABC News’ Luis Martinez contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — An internal Border Patrol memo obtained by ABC News indicates that the Department of Homeland Security could request up to 10,000 U.S. military troops to help with efforts along the United States-Mexico border.
Defense officials, however, said this week that they have not heard of this figure, but did say they expected that there could be additional requests for troops.
“This is just the start. This is an initial step, and we are anticipating many further missions,” a senior Defense official told reporters.
The White House yesterday announced that 1,500 troops would be sent to help with operations at the southern border. Those roles, according to sources, would be to help with processing and surveillance.
The Customs and Border Protection planning memo also says the agency could request military infrastructure and technology.
CBP “may” utilize military bases as holding facilities for those who are arrested by Customs and Border Protection. Defense officials said that DOD had not received any requests for that kind of assistance but would evaluate such requests.
The Navy may also help with enforcing and carrying out coastal border operations, according to the document.
Two U.S. officials told ABC News on Thursday afternoon that the first of 500 Marines bound for the border would be shipping out in the coming hours and Army units would be in transit later in the day. A good number of the Army troops will be military police, but they will not be carrying out law enforcement duties, according to other officials.
In addition, four military cargo planes are being positioned for use in deportation flights — a C-17 and C-130 in San Diego and another C-17 and C-130 at Fort Bliss, Texas. So far only the C-17 to Ft. Deportation flights cannot begin until the State Department arranges details, which could take some time.
The U.S. Northern Command said in a news release Thursday that it is “aggressively” bolstering security at the border. About 1,500 soldiers and Marines are “immediately” deploying to the region to augment the approximately nearly 2,500 service members already there supporting CBP’s mission at the border.
“In a matter of days, we will have nearly doubled the number of forces along the border, effectively implementing the President’s intent while planning and posturing for expanded efforts to protect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the United States,” said Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, commander of the Northern Command.
The exact number of personnel will fluctuate as units rotate personnel and as additional forces are tasked to deploy once planning efforts are finalized, Northern Command said. These forces will support enhanced detection and monitoring efforts and repair and emplace physical barriers, the release said.
-ABC News’ Matt Seyler contributed to this report.
Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. military is tracking strong early-year recruiting figures across the services, a signal it will meet or exceed 2024 performances, military officials told ABC News.
The Army and Navy, the two largest services and the most ailing from recruiting challenges, both say they’ve recruited at promising rates in the first quarter of fiscal year 2025, which began on Oct. 1. However, neither the Army nor the Navy could readily point out a reason, and the Navy said it is too early in the fiscal year to evaluate.
“We’ve seen momentum unlike anything we’ve [had] in a decade,” said Gen. James Mingus, the Army’s vice chief of staff, at a congressional hearing on Wednesday, March 12 — when he disclosed that five months into its recruiting year the Army had already signed up close to 73% of the year’s annual goal of 61,000 recruits.
The upward recruiting trends for the military services began last summer and have continued at a high pace. Some service chiefs projected then that the numbers would quickly surpass this year’s annual recruiting goals and build up the pool of recruits needed to start off the new recruiting year in October.
From 2023 to 2024, during the final year of the Biden administration, recruitment across the services jumped 12.5%, according to the Department of Defense.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said increased recruitments after President Donald Trump’s election were a reflection of a new mindset the Pentagon would promote to service members — a “warrior ethos” that Hegseth has said would focus away from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives he said were a distraction from a focus on military lethality.
“I think we’ve seen enthusiasm and excitement from young men and women who want to join the military actively because they are interested in being a part of the finest fighting force the world has to offer and not doing a lot of other things that serve oftentimes, too often, to divide or distract,” Hegseth said after becoming secretary.
At his confirmation hearing to be secretary, Hegseth said the military’s strongest recruiting asset was the commander in chief himself. “There is no better recruiter in my mind for our military than President Donald Trump,” he told senators.
One commanding general of recruitment, Air Force Brig. Gen. Christopher Amrhein, told ABC News that “there is no one silver bullet” for recruiting, but he said the Air Force had “honed in on the right ingredients, and they’re all working.”
Alex Wagner, a former senior Pentagon official in the Biden administration, said Hegseth’s conception of recruiting by promoting a warrior ethos amounted to “little more than a restatement, not even a rebranding, of existing efforts.”
Hegseth’s approach brings “nothing new of any substance,” said Wagner, who, as Air Force assistant secretary for manpower and reserve affairs, was a civilian leader in recruiting.
“People want to come into the military for a number of reasons, but one of the key reasons is to be something bigger than yourself and to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States,” he added. “I think we’ve long been building a warrior ethos.”
In his address to a joint session of Congress earlier this month, Trump said the U.S. Army “had its single best recruiting month in 15 years.”
That claim may be a reference to the Army’s recruiting success this past January. A defense official told ABC News that in January, the Army recorded the highest average growth in contracts per day since January 2010.
Mingus attributed the turnaround to changes in “who you recruit, where you recruit, how we recruit, more professionalizing of our recruit[ing] force [and] expanding the population.”
“All of those things [that] we’ve been working [on] for the last 18 to 24 months, we believe are coming to fruition,” he said.
The president took the credit for steady recruiting gains among the services, falsely claiming in the address to Congress that “it was just a few months ago where the results were exactly the opposite.”
“I’m straight-up just saying that we should not have women in combat roles — it hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated,” Hegseth said on the “Shawn Ryan Podcast” in November.
Critics have worried it could have a chilling effect on recruitment for groups including women and non-white men.
“In recent weeks, for the very first time, I’ve heard from a number of women, both in the service and who would consider the service, questioning whether or not the military is a place for them,” Wagner said. “Clearly this stems from the secretary’s firing of the military’s two most senior women, who earned their positions — and the respect of their peers — based solely on merit.”
Asked for demographic data on the first quarter 2025 figures, only the Air Force was able to answer ABC News’ query. A spokesperson said Air Force officials “weren’t tracking any significant demographic change” at this point.
A Navy spokesperson said it was “too early to tell” about demographics but pointed to successful early-year figures. Comparing the first quarter of fiscal year 2025 to that of fiscal year 2024, the Navy contracted 4,000 new sailors and shipped 5,000 more to boot camp, the spokesperson said.
It set its recruiting goal at its highest in 20 years, a turnaround from the pandemic era, when benchmarks and enlistments slumped.
“We are on pace to exceed recruiting goals in 2025,” said Adm. James Kilby, the Navy’s vice chief of naval operations, in the congressional hearing on Wednesday, March 12. “We’ve made some progress in the Navy, as the other services have. We have stopped the problem.”
The Navy spokesperson said the service makes assessments on figures on an annual basis but noted that some policies that enlarged the pool of recruits, including a preparatory course that helps potential sailors meet Navy academic and physical standards, have helped the effort.
The Navy’s prep course followed the success of the Army’s Future Soldier Preparatory Course that contributed close to a quarter of last year’s Army recruiting goal of 55,000 recruits.
“We did open up the aperture a little bit for people that want to serve in uniform, and we expanded various policies to increase opportunities for qualified candidates,” the spokesperson said.
Policies that open the aperture enable services to tap into a wider range of potential recruits — and the prep courses are intended to help them reach the academic or physical shape to meet standards.
Katherine Kuzminski, the director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, said the Army and Navy prep courses act as a sort of “pre-basic training” program.
Only 23% of youth are eligible based on service standards to serve in the military, and 9% of youth are interested in signing up, Kuzminski said, narrowing the pool to a “Venn diagram [that] does not necessarily overlap.”
The Air Force has also had a recruiting success story, said an Air Force Accessions Center spokesman, due largely to more recruiters in the field. The Air Force, under which the tiny Space Force is folded, has hiked its recruiting goals by 20% in 2025.
Wagner said the Biden administration had “initiate[d] a comprehensive review of military [entry] standards to ensure they made sense in the year 2025,” paving the way for it to meet its 2024 goals and even adjust them higher before the fiscal year ended.
Part of the approach was “making sure that our requirements were realistic, rather than an outdated vestige of a different era,” said Wagner, who also served under secretaries of defense in the Obama administration.
The Air Force during the Biden administration loosened body fat standards, which were stricter than the Army and Navy standards, he said, and it lifted a lifetime ban for airmen who tested positive for THC, as other military services had after recreational marijuana was legalized in parts of the United States.
Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Allvin, in a March 3 post on X, said recruitment for December, January and February were at 15-year highs and that the delayed entry program, or the DEP, is at its largest in nearly 10 years.
The DEP, which allows services to recruit future service members and ship them to boot camp at a later date, is a product of sustained work, Wagner said.
“I mean, you don’t build the healthiest DEP in a decade over the course of five weeks, right?” he added.
It’s unclear whether early success for military recruiters is a consequence of Biden administration policies such as the prep courses or enthusiasm for the new president — or a combination of both.
It is too early to assign credit, Kuzminski said.
“We can’t dismiss the fact that perhaps [the current administration] did affect either American youth’s decision to join the military or, more likely, their parents’ willingness to let them go into the military, for some portion of those folks,” she said.
“But the reality is that over the last three years, we’ve seen a lot of structural changes that improved the recruiting enterprise as a whole,” she added.
The smallest military service, the U.S. Marine Corps, has been historically resilient to recruiting shocks like the pandemic.
A Marine official said in a statement to ABC News that the Marine Corps “consistently meets its required accession mission.” That “enduring success,” the official said, “is directly attributed to the hard work of our Marine Recruiters.”
